Enid Dickson collection

fonds

1921 - 1968

Textual Records, Graphic Materials

456938

Enid Theodora Lovat Dickson was born at Armadale, Victoria in Dec 1895. Educated at Toorak College and the National Art Gallery School, 1914-1920, she became an accomplished Brisbane-based portraitist in the 1920's, known particularly for her portraits of ballet dancers. She exhibited at shows arranged by the Royal Queensland Art Society, of which she was a member.
In 1926 she was introduced to the ballet and became enthralled by the dancing of Pavlova and the Ballet Russe. She was given permission to sketch backstage. Pavlova recognised that Enid's talent was to capture the character portrayed in the ballet.
She sketched dancers from visiting ballet companies - the Spessiva Ballet, the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, the de Basil, the Royal Ballet, Ballet Rambert and Australian ballet companies including the National Ballet and the Borovansky Ballet.
The Brisbane circle included her friend Molly Hollinshead and they arranged a dance based on a sculptured frieze by Malvina Hoffman for which Pavlova had posed.
In 1934 she visited Jimna, northern Queensland and sketched the lives of goldminers in pastel landscapes and portraits.
She married in Sept 1934 and her son, Paul Treuthardt was born in 1935.
During 1939-1940 Dickson sketched Lichine, Lifar and Osato, among others in charcoal. She was interested in recording the ever-changing make-up and drew character studies of Rostoff as Paganini, Algeranoff as the Astrologer in Coq d'Or and Marion Ladre as The charlatan in Petrouchka. dressing room sketches include Anton Dolin, Vera Nemtchinova and Paul Petrov. Dolin opened her exhibition in the foyer of the Theatre Royal.
In 1947 she worked as tutor to the children working on the Charles Chauvel film "Sons of Matthew" and her sketches document the film-makers on location at Beaudesert and included portraits of nine of the children.
In Sydney she drew the Borovansky Ballet including the dancers Dorothy Stevenson, John Auld, Paul Hammond, Leon Kellaway, Lynne Golding and Kathleen Gorham.
A widely used portrait of her cousin Katherine Susannah Prichard was well-known.
Enid Dickson died in London in 1967. Nineteen of her works are in the Dance Collection of the Lincoln Center in New York. The National Library of Australia and the Queensland Performing Arts Centre Museum also hold her artwork. -- Notes from a biography supplied by the donor, from the Mitchell Library file (ML 04/983)

This collection comprises portraits and sketches, programs, correspondence, scrapbooks, photographs and ephemera mainly relating to ballet.

This collection comprises 5 record series. You may navigate to a more detailed description of each series from this collection record.

For information on Enid Dickson's life and drawings, especially of the Ballets Russes, see: Richard Stone "Come into the wings : the art of Enid Dickson", NLA News, vol. XVII no.11, Aug 2007 (front cover & pp.18-21)